Thursday 30 June 2011

Back in Mordor (XII)

I've painted these guys before. One of the worst sculpts in the entire Lotr range. Yet, put together on a movement tray they don't look so bad.



Painting them won't be too complicated as I will be sticking to the color scheme from the codex. It won't take long too, so I should be ready with these after the weekend.

Tuesday 28 June 2011

Back in Mordor (XI)

I had a great "long weekend" (4 days off thanks to national holiday) and spent it in Mazury (an area in northeastern Poland famous for its beautiful lakes and forests). Even though the weather wasn't great we (me and my wife) enjoyed ourselves very much and recharged batteries. Just to give you an idea of how it looks like, see the pic.


Well, the weekend is over. I'm not complaining though as I still have two months off (probably the best part of being a teacher). Right after coming back I sat down and had two long painting sessions to wrap up the current unfinished minis. The Morannon orcs are pretty cool models, definitely much better sculpted than the regular Mordor orcs. The sculpts are not all great though. There are some parts that look very nice (some of the faces, dynamic poses, weapons) but there are also some weaker spots. In order to add some variety I made a few minor conversions and added some shields from the Army of the Dead.
A few of them look like they were too hastily finished and look a bit misshapen.
Anyway, I'm glad this part is finished and I can start working on a next bunch of ugly orcs, this time from Barad Dur. After that, I will start working on more interesting models (the Nazgul).
Alright, that would be it for now. Just to wrap thing up, here's a video created by one of my favourite conteporary artists (I don't hesitate to use this word as I regard Don Hertzfeldt very highly).




Cheers,
Viruk

Thursday 23 June 2011

White City (III)

I've finished another prject that was long in WiP section. To be honest I hade couple of them and now I'll succesively add them here as they see sunlight at last.



Yesterday I added some Heroes to command Minas Tirith force. Today we'll give them lessr field commanders...and a banner :D


Music piece that was essential in painting this lot s a track from One Tree Hill (I guess so :D anyway I like it very much since I've heard it in it's previous ).


Wednesday 22 June 2011

White City (II)




Viruk's been pretty busy with his part of War of the ring so it's time for my to anwser on that load of Mordor updates.



From across the river leading army of Minas Tirith come two Brothers. Both Faramir and Boromir are painted in foot as well as mounted version. No special "fireworks" here, just simple conservative codex painting, unified with their soldiers.




Only thing I tried to introduce is a bit different base for Boromir including a little creek.

And a little (well maybe not little , in fact quite long) music piece that accompanied me during moments spent on those guys :

Friday 17 June 2011

Back in Mordor (X)

I'm still working on the Morannon orcs but I thought I'd show some pics of the orcs that I've painted recently in action. All photos courtesy of Mr R. from the Land Down Under ;)





That's it for the time being. Now, after a few very busy days I can only say one thing - long live the weekend!

Wednesday 15 June 2011

Pick of the Week

Haven't posted anything as my pick of the week in a while so here's a little trailer.



At first glance it may look like "just-another-300-movie" created in the heroic over the top style but one thing drew my attention - the director. Tarsem Singh delivers movies that are a true feast to the eyes. Maybe "Cell" wasn't that good but the visuals, the scenography and the twisted ideas he showed there were quite interesting. Another of his movies, "The Fall" was even better.
I'm looking forward to watching the "Immortals". Preferably on a large screen, preferably not in 3D.

Viruk

Sunday 12 June 2011

Back in Mordor (IX)

I've been pretty busy with work recently so I haven't made much progress on the Morannon orcs. I basecoated the whole box of warriors together with captains and command so that now I can work on all of them simultaneously.
I used some simple conversions and small changes to the poses. I've found that simply by placing two identical miniatures on slightly different base (and painting them in a different way, e.g. two various skin colors). This can work well with captains/hereos as well. Here are some examples.



Not much to see at this point but it should give a general idea of what I mean. Once they're painted it'll be easier to see the differences.

Another way to introduce some variety in a unit that I often use is doing simple conversions such as head or weapon swaps. Once again, here are some examples:



I also painted one of them as a test model to try a color scheme. I kept the colors dark and the armor slightly darker than the kind I painted on the Mordor orcs.



I've already started working on the reds but the progress isn't very fast as I'm working on all of the remaining Morannon orcs at the same time. I'll post an update once I've finished working on them.
Viruk

Tuesday 7 June 2011

Back in Mordor (VIII)


Finished up the first character for the Mordor army - Gothmog. To be honest, I liked the older version better. The amount and level of details was pretty much the same, only the pose was much more dynamic. The base of this one kind of makes up for it (I do like the the new mounted version though) but overall I liked the older sculpt better.
Anyway, the pics are here and I';; be moving to work on some Morannon orcs.

Sunday 5 June 2011

Back in Mordor (VII)


I had a bit more time during the weekend so I was able to finish all the minis I've been working on recently. Troll Chieftain is the first of them.
I've already painted quite a few trolls in the past. In my opinion they're one of the best sculpts in the range. I particularly like the way their skin is sculpted. It has two distinct areas, each one full of folds/scales that make shading and highlighting so much easier. In case of this one, there's also a nice looking armor and a weapon that looks big and a bit cumbersome - perfect for a troll.
I added more rubble than normally to the base. I figured that since trolls are much bigger, they'd feel comfortable enough walking on larger stones/rocks. I finished it off with the same types of static grass I'd used on the orcs previously.

More uglies from Mordor coming soon! From Morannon to be precise. Stay tuned for more :)
Viruk

Trouble in the Land of GW

I'm just reposting an "open letter"from the owner of MiniWarGaming that neatly summarizes all the problems with GW these days. Even though I feel like he's being overtly polite when he should get right down to the point, the guy has many good paints.



I'm not sure if it's enough to make GW reconsider their marketing strategy (they probably need to start noticing serious financial losses first) but it's pretty solid portion of food for thought nonetheless.

Wednesday 1 June 2011

Back in Mordor (VI)


The skin is pretty much ready. I tried to keep it slightly brighter than I normally do while painting this kind of sickly looking skin on orcs. This was done to create more contrast between large skin surface and the dark armor.
His skin has two distinct areas; the front, which is smoother and the back area (some kind of scales), so I made sure that the painting shows where one area ends and another starts.
By writing "sickly looking" I mean much darker colors in the recesses and the overall look of the skin. That's why the transitions from darker colors to brighter shades are not so smooth and the darker/brighter spots are not placed cohesively throughout the whole area.
Hopefully I'll get this one painted by the end of the week, so stay tuned for an update soon :)

Also, speaking of big guys,my all-time favourite NBA player has just announced his retirement. Kudos to Shaq O'Neal for 19 years of great career, both on the court and away from it. He's got such a magnetic personality that it's hard for me to imaging the league without him. The only thing that would make up for it is if he created yet another power duo with Charles Barkley on the commentary ;) So, once again, big cheers to the man and to finish off this post in style, here's one of my favourite Shaq moments.

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